Re: st: U.S. Census Data

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Nate Breznau
<nbreznau@bigsss.uni-bremen.de> wrote:
> I am wanting to end my usage of SPSS, and in general have successfully done
> so; however, in a project working with U.S. Census data I need to use a
> datafile that has over 30 million cases and 15 variables. This is the
> smallest version I can use for my purposes. Is there any way to alter Stata
> to work with such a monster file? I've pushed it to its maximum allowed
> memory and its not enough.
What version of Stata and on what platform are you using?
Number of cases is not a limiting factor since Intercooled/SE/MP
versions of Stata can all handle > 2000000000 observations (see
http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?limits).
More likely its a memory issue and there are various limits imposed by
a 32-bit OS, and also under M$-Windows.
So go for a 64-bit OS and possibly an alternative to M$-Windows (I've
no idea how much 64-bit Win systems can handle, but suspect its
similar to *NIX type systems which can have Gb's and Gb's of RAM).
Neil
--
"... no scientific worker has a fixed level of significance at which
from year to year, and in all circumstances, he rejects hypotheses; he
rather gives his mind to each particular case in the light of his
evidence and his ideas." - Sir Ronald A. Fisher (1956)
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